In his earthly ministry, Jesus also taught and assumed that a right reading of the Old Testament would lead one not only to a vague understanding that Jesus would come but rather to an accurate knowledge of him. When confronting some Jewish leaders, he boldly told them, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life, and it is they that bear witness about me” (John 5:39).

Old Testament Interpretation

I have often had an uneasy relationship with the Old Testament. I have loved it for its wild poetry and intricate narrative. I have striven to see it as it came to Israel and was received in unfolding splendor. And so, throughout much of my Christian life thus far, while I have been able to see the Old Testament as God’s word to Israel and as a densely woven set of storylines and movements that find resolution in the New, I have had difficulty moving back from the New Testament to the Old.

When I saw the New Testament’s use of Old Testament passages, I became confused. I held the apostles’ interpretations at arm’s length because it seemed that they were seeing what was not there. I knew the apostles could not be wrong in their inspired writing, so for years I attributed this seemingly creative strand of interpretation to their role as prophets. Matthew was right to say that Jesus’s flight to Egypt and return as a child fulfilled the words of Hosea (Matt. 2:15, Hos. 11:1), but there’s no way we could have known that. God let them see what we otherwise could not. We should not go one letter beyond what they said and saw anew. How could we?

I had thought my problem was strictly with the New Testament and its ways of reading. In truth, I did not yet understand the Old Testament for what it really was. I had not yet learned to read the books of the old covenant as Christian Scripture.

As I studied the book of Hebrews for my doctorate, I was confronted again and again with the author’s way of interpreting the Old Testament Scriptures. Perhaps more than any other book in the New Testament, Hebrews represents a long and careful engagement with the words of the Old Testament. Every claim about Jesus, every argument about the responsibilities of the audience, and every statement about the new reality that has come after Jesus’s life, death, resurrection, and ascension is grounded in what God said in the Old Testament. Nothing is presented as an innovation, but rather the author repeatedly claims to be interpreting God’s word.

He may see things that others had not seen before, but he is not reading them into the passages. Further, he expects his audience (and God expects us) to agree not just with his conclusions, but with his interpretations. That means in Psalm 2, we have the Father speaking to the Son (Heb. 1:5). In Psalm 45 and Psalm 102, we have what God says about the Son (Heb. 1:8-12). In Psalm 22, we have Jesus’s own words (Heb. 2:12).

Read More